by Jay McLean
With a smile, I set the phone on the nightstand and shower, using the time to come up with a response. When I get out, more messages are waiting.
Josh: Stupid autocorrect.
Josh: What I meant to say was *hi.*
Josh: So hi.
* * *
Josh halts to a stop when I step out on the porch wearing one of Grams’s long nightgowns. He waits for me to get to him, eying me from head to toe, before saying, “You look insanely hot, Becs.”
Shoving his chest, I roll my eyes at him.
He stifles his laugh, then says, “It’s about fire-trucking time you came out. I’m pretty sure I’ve been out here so long, my toes are bleeding. I think I need a nurse. Hey! You know a nurse, right?”
I take his hand, and practically drag him toward his apartment using my fake annoyance to hide the fact that I’m actually terrified of what will happen the moment we’re in there. As soon as we’re in his house, we switch positions. I let him lead me down the hall, toward the semi-darkness of his room and once we’re inside, he closes the door after me. I lean against it, using it as my emergency escape. “Tommy’s over at Nat’s,” he says, and the fear inside me escalates. I don’t know what I expected when I met him outside, but I figured it couldn’t be too bad if Tommy was in the house. But he’s not. We’re alone. Just me and him and a thousand unanswered questions.
“So…” He rocks on his heels, his hands in his pockets while I flatten mine against the door, my fingers scratching at the timber as if it’s somehow going to create a hole wide enough for me to escape through. “Why do you look so scared right now?”
After swallowing my nerves, I type on my phone and let the electronic words fill the silence. “Because I am.”
He sighs before stepping forward. “Why?”
I chew my lip as I type out the message, then lift my gaze and watch his response when I tap my phone. “After tonight, nothing changes, okay? I go back to college, and you go back to skating. This doesn’t mean anything. Got it?”
His eyes are slow as they lift to mine, then he shakes his head. “You can play your games. I’ll play mine. But you’re wrong, Becs. This changes everything.”
“Why? It doesn’t have to,” Cordy says.
He takes a moment, gathering his thoughts into words. “Because I’m in love with you, Becs. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
My eyes drift shut, his confession knocking all sense out of me. I blindly reach for him and find his chest, then move up to his neck, my heart thumping with the abundance of insecurities infiltrating my mind. But it doesn’t stop me from kissing him.
I kiss him until the questions disappear, and we’re nothing but tangled limbs and urgent emotions on a bed of memories. Our hands touch, tease, re-familiarize. I get lost in his taste, in his kiss, in his words. Somewhere far, far in the back of my mind, I know it should feel wrong. But it doesn’t. I want him this close. I want his lips all over me, his breath warming my skin, his hands drifting, touching, feeling me in ways I’ve feared and craved at the same time. I remove his shirt and skim my nails up his back. He squirms, a light chuckle escaping him. “Good to know you remember how much I hate that,” he mumbles, his legs between mine, and his weight on his forearms. I fight against his attention, the same time I fall deep in his web.
My fingers lace through his hair, tugging harshly to pull him away from me.
“Stop?” he asks. I should say yes. I should push him away. I should do a lot of other things but kiss him harder, begging, pleading for him not to stop. He groans when I pull back, my head landing on the pillow. He’s still holding himself over me, his hands in my hair. He licks his lips, tasting the aftermath. “That’s all I get?”
I laugh, silent but real, and he nuzzles my neck, his body pressing into mine. I can feel his excitement against my center, his slow kisses like pure agony toying with my need. Then he starts to move, gentle thrusts setting my entire body on fire. He pulls away from my neck and a moment later, we’re kissing again, moving together, mouths and tongues franticly searching and quickly finding a familiar rhythm. He rears back, his eyes on mine. “I missed you every day, Becs.”
He feels so right.
So perfect.
Our fingers lace together, his palms pressing down on either side of my head. He keeps the kisses relentless, breaking only to catch our breaths and I feel myself fading, rising and falling with the constant pressure building inside me. “Let me touch you,” he says, his voice rough. “Fuck, I need to touch you.” He doesn’t wait for a response, though. He simply shifts to the side, taking me with him. His fingers brush the space between my legs. I know he can feel it—how wet I am—and I know what he wants to do. His mouth finds mine just as he pushes my panties to the side. He slides a finger inside me. Slow. Soft. Painfully arousing. Each movement is measured, calculated, deliberately prolonging my release. His mouth, his hands, his every touch bringing me closer and closer to the edge. He knows what I like, what I want, what I need. Because he knows my body better than anyone. Better than myself.
He rolls onto his back, taking me with him while his fingers continue to pleasure me. Now I’m on top, my hands and knees keeping me upright. He sits up, forcing me to do the same just as his thumb finds my clit, halting my breath. “Take your clothes off, baby.”
He’s so bad.
So, so bad.
With a grin, I do as he asks. My breasts fall free, nipples hard and needy an inch from his lips. His eyes drift shut as he leans forward, lips warm and wet when he takes me in his mouth. He keeps the same pace between my legs, slow and steady and in my head I’m cursing, over and over, while I breathe harshly through my release. My body trembles, and God, I needed this. Needed him. I hold his head to my chest, using his body to keep mine steady. “God, Becs,” he rushes out, his breaths as sharp as mine. I reach over to his nightstand where I know he keeps condoms.
“You should check the expiration date,” he says.
My lips part.
He laughs quietly. “It’s been a while.” He shrugs. “And I haven’t had a need to buy any more.”
After checking the date, he lies flat on his back, his hands linked behind his head and a devilish smile across his lips. I rip the packet open with my teeth and pull down his boxer briefs and sweats at the same time. Then I roll the condom over him, something I know he loves to watch. He groans when he slides into me, his fingers digging into my hips. Then he reaches up to grasp my nape and pulls my mouth to his.
Swear, there’s no physical pleasure greater than Josh Warden inside me, his tongue dancing with mine, his moans filling the air while his hands worship every inch of my body.
“Stop,” he grunts, hands holding my hips in place. “Fuck.” He blows out a heavy breath. “If I make it three more seconds, that’s what? Five seconds more than the first time we did this, right?”
I laugh into his neck, my eyes closing when his hands find my hair. I pull back and reach for my phone.
But you made up for it the third and fourth time.
His eyebrows lift when he reads the text. “So this isn’t a one-time thing?”
I’m here all night.
* * *
Somehow, we end up on the floor of his living room, in our underwear, sitting cross-legged opposite each other, in a fort made of blankets, eating ice cream out of the tub. This is after making love in his bed, the shower, and the kitchen. We treat time like it doesn’t exist, like our joy and laughter is the remedy to prevent the sun from rising and delaying my imminent departure.
“Do you have to leave tomorrow?” Josh asks.
I nod.
“Why?”
I drop my spoon in the tub and get my phone. Cordy relays for me, “I have to work.”
He scoffs, sprays of ice cream flying from his mouth and landing right on my face. Laughing, he uses the blanket to wipe it away. “Who the hell works the day before Christmas?”
I soften my scowl. “I do. Obviously. And I’ll be workin
g Christmas Day, too.”
“Oh yeah?” He eyes me sideways. “Doing what?”
I find myself smiling. “Visiting the families from the center.”
He returns my smile with a wider one. “Say Something, right?”
Nodding, I have Cordy say, “Yeah. I take the family portraits and this guy I work with—Joey—he’s going to dress up as Santa.”
His gaze lowers. “Joey, huh?”
I pat his head teasingly. “I should tell you all about Joey,” Cordy says for me.
Josh shakes his head. “I don’t want to know.”
“What?”
After dropping his spoon in the now empty tub, he says, “If you’re with some guy back in St. Louis and you just cheated on him or whatever, I don’t want to know.”
I pick up the spoon and use it to thump his forehead. Then type, “I’m not a hussy.”
With a chuckle, Josh says, “Hussy?” He picks up his phone and holds it to his ear. “Becca? Yeah. She’s here… hang on.” He hands it to me. “2001’s on the phone, they want their word back.”
I give him the finger, but I’m laughing with him. “What I was going to say was: he’s a big fan of yours. He talks about you all the time. He was at the St. Louis Skate Tour finals just to see you. Something about a 720 gazelle you did in Miami…?”
Josh cringes, then somehow gets tangled in the sheets and trips over himself. Seriously, I’ve watched YouTube videos of him doing triple backflips from thirty-foot cliffs and he struggles with blankets?
What…?
I stalk him, okay?
There.
I said it.
Finally settled on his side, he faces me “Does he know about you and me?”
I shake my head, pretending to scoop out the melted ice cream from the tub.
“So I’m your dirty little secret?”
I drop the tub, my mind spinning. Then I lie down, leaning up on my elbow so I can look down at him—at his eyes—eyes a mixture of sad and sorry. His gaze searches mine as Cordy says for me, “Sometimes I want to tell him that I know you…”
“I want to tell him about everything. But then I begin to type the words and when I read them back, it doesn’t do us justice, and it doesn’t seem right to tell someone in that way. The words are robotic. Rehearsed. It’s impossible to explain our joy and our love and our pain. But I wish I could. I wish I could tell people how I felt. How I still feel.”
He reaches up, his fingers moving my hair behind my ear. He whispers, “Still?”
“Yes. Still.”
I’m quick to add, “But I meant what I said earlier, Josh. We can’t let this change us. I’ve built a life for myself in St. Louis. I’ve made friends and I’m doing well in class and on the school paper. I volunteer at a place I love, and I’m getting a lot out of all the therapy I do.”
“I’m happy.”
“For the first time in a long time, I’m happy. Not as happy as I would be if I got to see you more often. But not as miserable as I would be if you gave up skating to be with me.”
He smiles at that, his hand cupping my neck while his thumb gently strokes my throat.
“So if one night with you is all I get, I’ll take it and carry it with me. And I’ll cherish it all the days we’re apart.”
—Joshua—
I wake up the next morning and without opening my eyes, without feeling for her next to me, I know she’s gone. I know because she’s taken half my heart with her. It’s the same way I felt when I woke up the last time we did this. The last time we said goodbye without saying the actual words. The difference this time is that it doesn’t hurt. Because when I reach under my mattress for the worn envelope, the edges frayed, the content evidence of everything we are—hope overpowers the ache, overpowers the longing. And even though she’s gone physically, she’s not gone forever. And the fleeting words I spoke the last time she did this still hold the truth. She’ll always belong to me.
I pull out the envelope and flip it between my fingers, over and over, the weight of its content shifting like the weight of my heart between moments of Becca. My breath falters as I empty it, photographs spilling onto my chest. I pick up one, an image forever burned in my mind, and I scan over it, looking for a new meaning. I do this with all of them, one after another. Pictures of the wallpaper in her old room, a shovel in the dirt, dying flowers, Tommy’s sandpit, porch steps, fried pickles, and birthday cakes. There are dozens of Tommy, of Tommy and her, Tommy and me, and a single one of all three of us. I stare at that one the longest. I always do. And I wait for my heart to slow, for the reminder to hit me… that I lost her once, but I won’t lose her again. That I loved her once, but I’ll make her love me twice. And when I build the courage, those thoughts infiltrating my entire existence, I pick up the letter, her handwriting scrawled in bright red ink:
“If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.”
- Unknown.
22
—Becca—
“I spent my childhood Christmases staring out of my living room window watching kids playing with their new presents out in the street, all while dodging insults from my mother. Occasionally, I’d dodge the empty bottles she’d down during those insults.
“I’d see the smiles on parents’ faces as they held each other, their children’s laughter bringing them more joy in that one day than I’d ever seen with my mother. It’s not to say she wasn’t a happy person. She was. Or, at least, that’s how I saw her. She’d laugh when she was drinking, smile when she had her boyfriends over. But it seemed her ultimate happiness came from my misery. Even when she took her own life and attempted to take mine with it, she was laughing. It was sinister, but it was there. There was never any real joy, though. There was never a moment where I caught her looking at me the way those parents had—with love and adoration.
“I’d spent almost eighteen years of my life without ever really knowing what that look felt like. I lived in silence, blinded by darkness, and even though I’d been with guys before, physically, they never looked at me the way I’d hoped. The way I longed for.
“And then I met Josh—who looked at his son the way those parents on the streets had. I wanted so badly to be that kid that I found myself envious of a three-year-old. But I had no reason to be, because in time, I’d know exactly what it felt like to be the object of someone’s affection. To be loved. To be adored. To be the reason for someone’s joy.
“We loved in ways that can’t be explained, hurt in ways that can’t be justified. We felt every possible emotion under the sun. Literally. I’ll never be able to feel the sun on my skin, never be able to hear the sounds of spinning wheels against concrete, never feel the safety of someone else’s touch—and not think of Josh Warden.
“My mother didn’t give me a lot. In fact, she did everything possible to deny me the basics of life. I never knew what I was missing. Not until she took my ability to speak. It wasn’t until I felt Josh’s love that I realized that even though I couldn’t speak, it didn’t mean I didn’t have a voice.”
Joey stares at me, his eyes wide in disbelief beneath his Santa hat.
I’d told Josh that I’d wanted to tell Joey about him, I just didn’t have the words. But last night, as I was preparing my equipment for the family photos today, it all came to me. I wrote it down in my journal, and Cordy just repeated it word for word.
“I’m sorry about your mom, Becca,” Joey says.
I smile, because even though I appreciate his words, I can see him trying to push down what he really wants to say.
“But holy shit! You and J-Ward!?” And there it is. “I don’t believe you. No fucking way!”
I roll my eyes and type, “You don’t think your worshipped god would be into a girl like me?”
He laughs as he picks up yet another plate donated by the fine families of Say Something. Every house we’ve stopped at for the morning appointments gave us a plate of leftover breakfast. Now we’re sitting in a pr
actically deserted park, me with my gear and him dressed as Santa, taking advantage of their generosity.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, chewing on a strip of bacon. “It’s just… I mean… it’s J-Ward! The guy’s, like, the king of kings in the skate world. At least to me, and you—you’ve sat there and listened to me talk about him and this entire time you knew him? That’s fucking gnarly, dude. But I kind of still don’t believe you.”
I hold the phone between us and send a text to Josh.
Becca: Hey.
His reply is instant.
Josh: Hey! I was just thinking about you. Merry Christmas! How are the family photos going?
I show Joey the response, but he shakes his head, his shaggy surfer blond hair falling over his eyes. “I’m suspect. That could be anyone. It could be your dad and you’ve just put him in your phone as Josh. Is this a prank? It’s a pretty shady one if it is.”
I roll my eyes.
He mocks it.
Becca: It’s going well. I’m in a park with Joey taking a little break. I told him about you.
Josh: About me? Or us?
I hold the phone right in front of Joey’s nose, my eyes wide in question. “See?” I mouth.
He scoffs. “That’s nothing.”
Sighing, I type:
Becca: Us.
Josh: Huh. So you finally found the words?
Becca: They’re as close to worthy as I can get.
Josh: Can I see them?
Becca: One day. Maybe.
Josh: I’ll take it. So… this Joey guy? Do I need to be worried?
Becca: lol. He’s harmless. Trust. Besides, he has more of a boner for you than he does for me.
“Don’t tell him that!” Joey yells.
Becca: He doesn’t believe me anyway.
Josh sends through a picture of him, his goofy grin from ear to ear. He’s sitting at Grams’s kitchen table, probably having lunch with her. I show Joey the image, but he just shakes his head. “That could be taken from any online image search.”